Y is for Yahrzeit
by Jelsemium
Summary: Jessica Malloy stops by the cemetary to honor the first anniversary of Nikki Davis's death. She wonders if Don Eppes will come, and she wonders what she'll say to him if he does.
1. Chapter 1

Y is for Yahrzeit

Rating: K+

Warning: Spoilers for Guns and Roses and Burn Rate

Surprise! This is for the 2007 Summer Alphabet Challenge! (And I haven't even finished posted the 2006 stories!)

* * *

Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary sprawls out from the urbanized jungle known as Greater Los Angeles and rolls into the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. The lush grass, graceful trees and sheer size of the park smothers the noise of traffic from the nearby freeway. Even the cars that crawl along the winding roads through the cemetery seem hushed by their environment.

Jessica Malloy, formerly of ATF, stepped gently on the brakes of her silver Toyota Corolla and allowed a doe to cross the road in front of her.

After the deer had disappeared from sight, Jessica pulled to the side of the road and got out of her car. She looked around to orient herself. It had been months since she had been here last, in spite of how many times she had told herself that she needed to come.

One year ago today her best friend, Nikki Davis, had been murdered. Once upon a time, Nikki had been her partner and best friend. Their lives had diverged, but had stayed in touch. They'd been able to talk about anything – work, food, sports… men.

So, Jessica had heard a lot about Special Agent Don Eppes before she finally met him. By then her opinion of him had been flavored by Nikki's pain and her bitterness at Nikki's death. It had taken high explosives, literally, to crack her shell.

Jessica had been investigating a series of bombings and had almost been killed. Ironically, she had been saved by two men that she hated. One of the them was a man she had labeled a terrorist. Another had been Don Eppes.

Jessica consulted her notes. Then she checked her bag to make sure that she had all the equipment she needed because her destination was several yards from the paved road.

She wended her way carefully over the uneven lawn between the graves and located her friends just past the gravesite of Gretchen S. (1957 to 1980).

The Davises were next to a cool, green lake populated with graceful white ducks and energetic mallards. Graceful eucalyptus trees edged the banks. Nearby graves were decorated with colorful tributes such as flowers, balloons and even toys.

Jessica knelt in front of Nikki and Richard's graves and felt around for the holes that had been dug there to hold flowers. The holes had a tendency to fill with grass roots, but the cemetery provided cups, inserted upside down, to keep the roots from completely filling them in.

She pulled the pry bar out of the bag she was carrying and used it to levers the cup out of ground. She filled them from the lake and carefully divided the flowers that she had brought between Nikki and Richard.

There was no other floral tribute at the Davis' gravesite besides her zinnias, Jessica realized. She really hadn't expected Nikki's parents to come. They lived in a different state and only consented to Nikki being buried in Rose Hills because they had expected Richard to be living nearby.

Jessica looked sadly at Richard's grave. Unfortunately, 'nearby' was the only part that had proven accurate.

However, Eppes should have left flowers. She wondered if he had forgotten, or if he just didn't care.

She mentally kicked herself. You'd think that she would have learned her lesson about jumping to conclusions by now. It was early yet. Eppes might come after work, assuming he wasn't being overwhelmed.

Or maybe he wouldn't come today. As far as she knew, Yahrzeit didn't require a gravesite visit.

She had brought her breakfast along, so she nibbled on her blueberry muffin and fed crumbs to the duck. After she finished, she wandered around, dividing her time between studying the headstones and admiring the rose gardens that gave the cemetery its name. Every now and then she looked towards the lake to see if Eppes had arrived.

She hadn't intended to stay all day, but the later it got, the more determined she was to see if Eppes would come. After a while Jessica began to wonder if there was a restroom in the park. She supposed there was one in the mortuary, but she didn't want to go that far away from the gravesite.

She wandered back to the road and asked some women who were unloading a bucketful of colorful bouquets. As it happened, there _was_ a restroom just across the street from where she had stopped her car.

Around 2 PM, a deliveryman left a wreath of white roses and lilies on Nikki's grave. After he left, Jessica drifted over to read the card. She was not surprised to see that they were from Nikki's parents.

Maybe she should have brought a book, she thought. Then decided that maybe she should write one instead. She sighed, Les Miserables and The Fugitive already told her story… from the opposite point of view. The point of view of the people unjustly harassed by an obsessive law enforcement agent.

She found some shade and sat on the bank, watching the ducks and meditating.

The second time that she came out of the bathroom, she noticed that the shadows had lengthened appreciably. She was getting hungry. The cemetary would be closing soon.

She decided that Eppes wasn't coming today, so she went back her car. As she was unlocking the door, she took on last look over her shoulder toward Nikki's grave…

And spotted Special Agent Don Eppes striding across the lawn, carrying a bouquet.


	2. Chapter 2

Jessica relocked her car door and walked back to the lake. She didn't hurry as she didn't want to intrude on Eppes' grief, which was obviously genuine, in spite of how his and Nikki's relationship had ended.

She hesitated as she neared. She wasn't sure how to address him. Calling him by his given name seemed too familiar, considering how she treated him when they met, "Agent Eppes" seemed too formal, and just "Eppes" seemed too curt.

Eppes stood near Nikki's grave, the paper that the bouquet was wrapped in rustled as he clenched and unclenched his fist. She couldn't tell if he was speaking or not.

After a few moments, Eppes knelt beside Nikki's headstone and extended the red and white striped flowers.

Jessica heard herself blurt out, "Are carnations even _legal_ in Rose Hills?"

Eppes was on his feet in an instant. Jessica half expected him to go for his gun, but instead he just stared at her for a few minutes. Then he looked down at the bouquet in his hand as if wondering how it had gotten there. "Oh. Ah, Agent Malloy. Um, I wasn't sure if roses would be… ah… appropriate," he said awkwardly.

Jessica held up her hands in a placating manner.

He shuffled his feet and gestured at the bouquet. "I looked online, the site said that striped carnations stand for apologies and regret."

"Oh," Jessica said. "Um, that wasn't supposed to be a slam," she added.

Eppes looked surprised.

"And it's not Agent Malloy anymore," Jessica added.

Eppes nodded. "I heard that you'd left the agency."

Jessica nodded.

"Because of Glaser?"

"That was part of it," Jessica admitted. "I joined the FBI to fight injustice, not to pursue private vendettas." Her disgust with herself must have been plain because Eppes relaxed a little.

"Everybody makes mistakes," he said quietly.

Jessica shook her head. "A mistake is one thing, this was more…" she trailed off, frustrated with her inability to articulate her feelings. "Twice I passed judgment on innocent men based purely on my feelings and I ignored any kind of evidence to the contrary."

"Twice, huh?" Eppes said with a quirk of his eyebrow. He turned his attention back to Nikki's grave. "At least you stopped at two. I seem to be a serial offender."

Unsure of what to say, now that she had Eppes ear, Jessica looked down. "Oh," she said. "Let me make room for your bouquet." She knelt down so she could move her zinnias from Nikki's grave to Richard's.

"Thank you," Eppes said.

She held up her hand and, after a moment's hesitation, Eppes handed her the carnations. As Jessica arranged them, she made an interesting discovery. "There _is_ a rose in here," she said, lightly touching the cream and magenta rose in the center of the bouquet.

"Ah, yeah," Eppes said. "I took that from a bush in my brother's yard. My mother planted that bush. It's the only one that has any decent blossoms on it right now."

"Double Delight?" Jessica asked in an effort to identify the type of rose.

"Ah, yeah," Eppes said.

Jessica looked up at him. "I'm sorry if I am making you feel uncomfortable," she said. "I just wanted to talk to you." She looked down and fiddled with the flowers. "I've been waiting most of the day. I mean, I know you're, well..."

"Jewish?" Eppes said with a trace of wryness. He didn't look at her. "I'm not devout, not really. And I don't keep kosher. However, I do observe Yahrzeit."

"The first anniversary of a loved one's death," Jessica said.

"Yes," Eppes said. He continued looking at Nikki's grave. "I lit a Yahrzeit candle for her last night."

Jessica nodded. "You're not afraid to leave a candle burning for 24 hours in your apartment?"

Eppes managed a faint smile. "It's at my brother's house," he admitted. "Charlie and my dad have been keeping an eye on it." He hesitated. "We used the same candle that we used for my mom."

"Nikki liked your mother," Jessica said, standing up and absently brushing at her pants.

"Mom liked her, too," Eppes said.

"Nikki loved you," Jessica said.

Eppes was silent for a long time. "I liked her," he said.

"Why did you leave her?" Jessica asked. She bit her lip. "Sorry."

"That's all right," Eppes said. "I've been asking myself the same question for years." He looked over to the mountains. "I always told myself that it was for the better." He looked at Richard's grave and changed the subject. "He was mad at me for leaving her. I don't understand that. I'd have thought he would have been grateful."

"You hurt her," Jessica said, nodding at Richard's grave. "That bothered him as much as the fact that she still loved you, maybe more than she loved him."

Eppes winced.

Jessica waited.

"When I was a kid, it seemed like my brother got all the attention," Eppes said. "I used to think that I wanted a girlfriend who would put me first. No, not just first, but who would make me the center of her universe and drop everything else to cater to my needs."

"Nikki would have done that," Jessica said tartly. Then she winced at her vindictive words.

"I think that's why I left her," Eppes said in a distant voice. "I told myself it was because I was afraid of being smothered. I think that maybe, even then, I was afraid of myself. What I would do if I had that much…" he hesitated. "If I had that much power over another person."

He shook his head and looked back down at Nikki. "I'm sorry, Nikki. I would have killed you. You were better off with Richard."

Jessica cast around for something to say. "They were good together," she said. "I mean, I know they had their rough spots… everybody does. But they loved each other and were mostly happy."

"Mostly happy," Don knelt by the graves again and teased the double delight rose from amongst the carnations and laid it on Nikki's headstone. "I guess that's about the best anybody can hope for."

"Are you happy?" Jessica asked.

"It comes and goes," he said. He looked up at her. "What about you?"

Jessica shook her head. "It's kind of hard to be happy when you're worrying about the next step. I can only sponge off family members for so long."

"You know there are a lot of law enforcement jobs out there," Eppes said. "Lots of places would be happy to have an ex-Fed on the payroll."

Jessica snorted. "I think that would be a very bad idea. Sort of like offering an alcoholic a subscription to the wine of the month club."

"Ah, oh, sorry," Eppes said. He stood up again, putting his hands to his back and hissing in pain as he did so.

"Sprain something?"

"Bruised," Eppes said. "It was a rough week today." He looked around the cemetery. "For awhile there I wasn't sure I'd make it here… at least, not under my own steam."

Jessica gave a woof of laughter. "Yeah, for some reason I don't miss that part of the job."

"What do you miss?"

The question took her by surprise. "I…" she stopped. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "The camaraderie, for certain. And… well… being useful." She thought for a few minutes before adding. "The sense of being part of something important."

"There are other jobs that can give that to you," Eppes said. "If you want, I'll be happy to act as a reference."

Jessica was taken aback. "You'd do that for me? After the way I treated you?"

"_If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand_?" Eppes quoted.

She tilted her head.

"Psalms 130," Eppes said. "My father suggested it for last night."

"There's no set prayer for Yahrzeit, then?"

Eppes shook his head. He looked at his watch.

"Got a hot date?" Jessica asked.

"No, I just wanted to get over to my mom's grave before closing," he said.

"Oh," Jessica felt herself blushing. "Of course. Don't let me stop you, I should be going, anyway."

"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help," Eppes said. "My brother Charlie is good at finding jobs for people."

"Like Glaser?"

Eppes nodded. "And he has pull in surprising places. I bet he can help you find a job that will make you happy."

She shrugged. "Right now, I have no idea what might make me happy," she said. "I'm not even sure that I deserve to be happy."

Eppes studied her for several minutes. Then he said, "What do you suppose is worse than making the same mistake twice?"

Jessica's eyebrows went up. "What?"

"Making it a third time," Eppes said.

Jessica pondered that statement for several minutes. When she decided that she had the correct interpretation, she gave him a faint grin. "In other words, I shouldn't be in such a hurry to condemn myself, Agent Eppes?"

"Something like that," he said. "And my name is Don."

"Jessica," Jessica said, holding out her hand. "Tell you what, Don, I'll try to forgive myself if you do."

"You have a deal, Jessica," Don said, taking her hand.

They smiled as they shook on it.


End file.
